


all up in the knitty gritty

by halfwheeze



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Richie knits, everyone besides reddie is just a mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 03:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16360205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: richie knits for all of the losers, but maybe this one project matters a little more.





	all up in the knitty gritty

**Author's Note:**

> as a knitter, i'm a little proud of this one.
> 
> for tori, i hope you have many better days. 
> 
> hope you guys enjoy!

He’s good at it. He’s eighteen, and it’s probably not the coolest thing in the world that he’s completely bitchin at knitting, but he’s totally bitchin at knitting. He started it two years ago, definitely not to help him quit smoking because the smoke bothered Eds, but because it looked like a fun hobby. It frustrates him, but it gives him something to do with his hands instead of bouncing around the room, and something to focus on rather than constantly rambling about things no one in the room cares about. Sure, does anyone care about the difference between a purl stitch and a garter stitch? No, but all of them are happy enough with the knitted gifts that they get that they’ll let Richie ramble if he damn well pleases. 

He does regular knitting, but he picked up loom knitting last year and honestly it’s so much easier, taking so much less of his time to have a satisfying finished product. He tried to start doing crochet a couple of months ago, but it’s almost like backwards knitting with only one needle, and he got too frustrated to keep going. Anyway, it takes him so little time to loom knit that it’s just what he does most of the time, most of the time with circle looms, though he does also own rectangle looms. He just prefers his little circle guys and how fast and fun it is to make scarves, socks and hats. 

He makes scarves for Stan and for Beverly. Stan needs scarves because he’s chronically cold, and he can jack hoodies from his boyfriend, but Mike doesn’t wear scarves at all. To be a good best friend, Richie just has to hook him up. Beverly, Richie’s other and no less fabulous best friend, needs scarves to complete her winter looks, which means that Richie has churned out one of nearly every color of the rainbow and many combos. Because of how much he knits and how many hours of the day, it’s usually less than a day for him to do a whole scarf now. Teachers will even let him knit in class, because at least it’s something that will keep him quiet and in his seat. He pays attention while he’s knitting too, because it’s easier for him to focus on the teacher when his hands have something else to do. 

For little Georgie Denbrough, who is actually like twelve and not very little at all, Richie uses a sock loom to make little cats that are all over Georgie’s room. Despite the fact that he’s older now, the kid still keeps every little toy that Richie makes for him, so be fucked if Richie is going to stop. The little toys take stuffing though, so he has to space out how many he makes before can order stuffing again. Georgie usually gets them every two or three months, as they were one of the first things Richie made himself learn, just because they were so goddamn cute. He has a few of his own in his room still. 

Big Bill, Mikey, and Ben all get hats. Oodles of noodles of fucking hats. White brimmed and black brimmed and same-tone brimmed and slouch beanies and tight-fit beanies and warm weather beanies and woolen beanies, just whatever Richie can think to make them. He did some simply sewing on a hat for Bill for it to say  _ Silver  _ on the brim, the cover portion of the beanie done in silver that was almost like velvet. The first time Rich gave a hat to Bill, it was with the feigned desire to cover up the older boy’s ears, but it’s really because Richie likes to make things for his friends, well, as noticed in the magnitude of products he has turned out for his friends free of charge. 

For Eddie, well. For Eddie, Richie makes socks. He makes ankle socks and knee socks and socks that are done in rainbow print despite the fact that it’s a waste of yarn that he can barely justify to himself, and Eddie is the only person he’ll count stitches for. He makes socks thin enough for Eddie to wear inside of shoes and he makes socks with yarn so thick that it’s sometimes surprising that Eds can get his feet in them at all. He patches them carefully where the loom makes natural one-stitch holes in the ankles, so that Eddie never has to see flaws, and he makes so many socks for Eds that he probably has an entire drawer of made-by-Richie products. 

He goes back to orthodox knitting for Eddie. Eddie shivers and Richie hands over his jackets, but Richie realises that he wants Eddie to have something that Richie  _ made  _ that is just for  _ Eddie,  _ for one person and one person only. He doesn’t want to have Eds borrow some streamlined thing that Richie got from a second hand shop on Fifth because he and Bevs thought that it would look cool (it definitely doesn’t, but he pulls it off anyway). He wants Eddie in a woolen cable-knit sweater with a rainbow patch on the bottom seam, and he knows exactly what it’s going to look like long before he’s finished it. He’s been working on it for a month, which is longer than it usually takes him for anything, but he’s only been working on it when he’s not in school and not with the other Losers. He doesn’t want Eds to know. 

He doesn’t know  _ why  _ he doesn’t want Eds to know. Normally, he wants everyone to know what he’s working on for them so that they can have a vote in the product that he will definitely be making them wear, but this… feels different. He wants to surprise Eds and he wants Eds to love it so desperately that the feeling is all new burning, new hurt, new everything that Eddie hasn’t done anything to deserve. Eddie only deserves the sunlight that he inspires in the cavity of Richie’s chest, but that’s another poem for another time. Richie hasn’t written any poetry since he started knitting. 

He finishes it just before Christmas, which is good, because Christmas was the goal. He gives shit to Stan and Bevs for Hanukkah, because Stan is Jewish and Bevs doesn’t believe in anything, so she celebrates with Stan so he never feels alone. Christmas means a lot in the Tozier family, and he has a scarf made of synthetic velvet for his mom and a pair of slipper socks made of wool for his dad, but he leaves early in the morning on Christmas Eve for the present he’s most excited to give away. He swallows before folding up the sweater and placing it carefully into his backpack, the most delicate he’s ever been with anything. 

He walks to the Kaspbrak house, because it’s not that far, but he climbs the tree outside of Eddie’s window instead of knocking on the door. Mama K still doesn’t like him at all, but he has gloves for her inside of his bag anyway, because he still wants her to; he wants to be able to come to see the Spaghetti Man without scaling a six foot fucking wall or climbing a tree, but whatever. He climbs up the tree and taps against the window with his knuckles in a sequence, one that he made up to tell Eddie it was him a long time ago, when they were maybe thirteen. Eds has long since tried to tell him that Richie is the only one who climbs into his window anyway, but that’s not the point. 

“Rich? It’s seven in the morning. Why are you even awake?” Eds asks as he opens the window, using his free hand to rub at his eyes. He looks sleepsoft and pretty, and Richie knows exactly why he kept the sweater a secret, and it’s a joke to tell himself otherwise. Eddie steps back from the window to let him inside without really expecting an answer, just climbing back into his own bed without giving Richie a second glance. Richie swings wildly between loving the trust and hating the dismissal, but just climbs inside instead of saying anything, closing the window behind himself before he laid down behind Eddie. It’s something that they’ve done a hundred thousand times, and it should be weirder for two eighteen year old boys, but it never is. It never has been. 

“I brought something for you,” he says, letting his cold nose press into the back of Eddie’s neck. The other boy swats at his thigh but doesn’t move away from him, instead curling back into Richie. 

“Have something for me in a couple of hours. My mom won’t be up until eleven at the earliest; she’s Christmas drunk. Stay for a while,” Eddie replies, guiding Richie’s hand from his own thigh onto Eddie’s stomach, where Eddie entwined their fingers. Richie nods and relaxes, allowing Eddie to lull him into sleep with his breathing and the warmth of his body. 

Eddie isn’t there when he wakes up. Richie knows that long before he’s even fully awake, because he’s fully clothed with a jacket on but he’s still cold, the absence of a person in front of him making him feel equally empty as the space. He doesn’t really wake up until Eds comes back into the room though, a cup of coffee in his right hand and a chai in his left. Richie perks up immediately, sitting up to take the chai out of his hand and sipping at it, even as it’s enough to scald his entire throat. 

“Thanks,” he mumbles, managing a grin up at Eddie. Eddie nudges him over until he can sit down next to Richie, one knee up to his chest as he sips at his coffee. They sit in a quiet for a little while, sipping at warm drinks until they both feel alive. 

“So you have something for me?” Eds asks after a while, his coffee drained and set onto his bedside table. Richie nods and sets his own mostly empty chai onto the side table as well, standing with a stretch that pops his entire back satisfyingly. He bends to pick up the backpack he set on the floor earlier this morning and opens it, a feeling of anxiety attempting to settle itself against his stomach. 

“Uh. Yeah. Merry Christmas, Eds,” he announces as he takes out the carefully folded sweater, passing it into Eddie’s hands without looking at his friend. How much it means to him must show all over his face, and he doesn’t want Eddie to see it. Eddie doesn’t need to know how much he could hurt Richie right now, because it will make him so much more delicate with him than Richie’s little rager, and that’s not what Richie would ever want from this beautiful boy who could destroy him. This young man who has rages like a fire and who soothes like the sea, who means so much more than Richie ever should have let him matter. Eddie looks at him and he knows. Richie knows he knows. 

“Rich,” Eddie says, soft and reverent, and Richie swallows. He can’t do this. Not today, maybe not ever. 

“Yeah, uh. I gotta go, though. Merry Christmas, Eds,” he repeats, walking over to the window with Mama K’s gloves still in his backpack because  _ he can’t do this.  _ He can’t make Eddie break his heart. 

“Richard Alexander Tozier, if you don’t come here and kiss me, I might just be angry at you,” Eddie interrupts his thoughts as Richie has one foot out of the window. As soon as he registers what’s been said, Rich almost whole ass falls over himself in scrambling back into the room, falling to the floor between Eddie’s knees, kneeling before him as he still sat on the bed. Eddie laughs as he cups Richie’s jaw, smiling down at him. 

“You?” Richie asks, and it doesn’t make any sense, but Eddie gets him. 

“Me,” he says, nodding, and then he leans down to kiss Richie, because even if he says he wants to be kissed, Eddie Kaspbrak goes out and gets what he wants anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> send me prompts @hcckstetter on tumblr!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [You Look Cute In My Sweater.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19875211) by [Alt_er_Lucas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alt_er_Lucas/pseuds/Alt_er_Lucas)




End file.
